The Strange Economics anthology will feature SFF stories on the theme of “economics”, broadly interpreted. It’s paying a semi-pro rate of CAD1.5c/w. Simsubs are allowed. Submissions are open until January 30, 2018, so there is still some time to come up with a story, write it, polish it, and submit it.

Some ideas/prompts/suggestions for stories:

Job market implications of genetic engineering and “designer babies” on society: Do parents seal the employment fate of their children? Why would anyone engineer their children for the jobs no one wants?

What kind of work will people do when human labor is no longer necessary? Does work still exist? How are resources distributed? How do people spend their time? Explore these question in a SF world, where robots and AI have eliminated the need for work, or a fantasy world, where magic or gods have eliminated the need for work.

Supply and demand in a world of magic: a critical spell/ritual ingredient is in short supply.

Some people think capitalism is the final stage of human history, and no other systems are going to arise. If that’s right, what will the capitalism of the future look like? If that’s wrong, what other system might take its place? Tell a story about either of these futures.

A market for human souls: a “collector” who makes their living selling souls to demons, but questions where to draw the line (and by extension, the variable value of human life).

Global warming will create new economic challenges over the next hundred years. Write about one or more of those problems, and how people deal with them.

Space Tourism. Write about the business in the near-future.

Mars or moon colonies. Some run by China, one run by NASA, some run by multinational corporations. Tell a story about the differences in how they’re run, and the potential conflicts that arise, for example, when resources are scarce.

Pollution is an example of a market failure. Tell a story about how a future society tries to deal with this market failure. Come up with a policy solution, and tell a SF story about why it works, or doesn’t. Or, create a fantasy analogy for pollution, such as a side effect from using magic. Maybe using spells releases demons into the wild. Should the peasants be expected to deal with the demons? Or maybe the peasants get fed up with the wizards not dealing with the problem.

Space pirates.

Corporate neo-feudalism.

What if the gap between rich and poor continues growing? Is there a breaking point? What does that look like?

Strange Economics is an anthology of speculative fiction on the theme of “economics”. If that sounds like your thing, or if you just want to support the project, please take a minute to check out the fund-raising reward tiers and see if any of them appeal to you. All of the money we raise goes to the authors involved.

If you’re a speculative fiction author, there is an open call for submissions. We pay 1.5c/word CDN for accepted stories. If you have a story that you think might fit, we’d love to see it.